Alec Hogg: Deja Vu as our Power Hour returns to radio
Here's a little-known story worth re-telling. A quarter century ago, my incessant knocking on SAFM's door found a willing ear in recently appointed station manager Charlene Smith. One of the most courageous and competent people I've met, Charlene believed a daily business show would rejuvenate the station – despite top management insistence that 'it will never work'.
She backed my idea, but was was a hard taskmaster, insisting a full month of interviews be lined up before signing a six month contract. Unfortunately, Charlene's enemies within the toxic national broadcaster used this to knife her in the back. Three days before we were to launch, they used the proposed business show to claim she had exceeded her authority and dismissed her.
Were it not for the sage advice of my closest and most rational friend – a lawyer, go figure – I might have followed Charlene out the SABC door. Then the half dozen business radio shows now on SA's airways might never have been born. But with value required for that contract, a 20-minute Market Update was started in dead airtime. It soon attracted an audience. The rest is history.
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